Sangee Shrestha has been in the field of art for a decade now. Besides, she has even tried her hands on cartoons and teaching and has about two dozens group exhibitions up her sleeves. "Abyakata Abhibhaktiharu" is her first solo work.
Inaugurating the exhibition, His Excellency Finn Thilsted, the Ambassador of Denmark to Nepal, said Sangee´s works presented a globalized form of arts and were a different way of seeing Nepal.Use of geometrical structures, a distinctive medium of presenting works of art, is not a regular scenario in Nepal, and is a unique treat for the eyes of Nepali art viewers. So Shrestha adds, "Structures like squares and rectangles confine one within their boundaries unlike other figures like circles."
Most of the paintings in the exhibition seem apt to the current situations of the world, making Nepal not an exception.
Sangee, who started working on this particular collection eight years ago, says, "People these days confine their emotions to themselves and lead claustrophobic lives in the quest of catharsis of their repressed emotions."
Justifying the use of women´s faces in most of her works, she says, "The paintings are not for advocating women´s freedom but rather representations of the emotions of the whole humankind."
Shrestha has a Masters degree in History, Culture and Archeology and a Diploma in Fine Arts. She is also the better half of Abin Shrestha, a Nepali cartoonist and illustrator.
"Shrestha´s works are a process of innovation instead of copied versions, and are a powerful way of presenting the society," said Manjul, the popular Nepali poet, while contemplating on the paintings at display.
"Though most of the painter´s expressions are stiff, the confinement or stiffness of the emotions presented by her geometrical structures has a beauty of its own," says Manish Lal Shrestha, an internationally acclaimed contemporary artist of Nepal.
Bright red strokes to dull gray shades have been used by Shrestha as she brings to canvas the collective repressed emotions of modern times."Life has become mechanical," she says, as cubistic figures dominate her paintings. The other odd fact being that both the canvases and the exhibition venue itself are "bigger" squares and rectangles.
The exhibition is open until Monday, April 20.
Gallery hours:
Sunday-Friday: 11 am to 6 pm
Saturday: 12 noon to 4 pm
(All photos by Bikash Karki.)
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